Writings

1 - 20 of 20 in All Writings by Thomas Lewis

"Hey Thomas, do you want to meet Joshua Davis?"
Thus it began. But let me start from the beginning. In 2007, I saw Joshua Davis present at a conference in New York where he spoke about the concept of digital, generative art. I really enjoyed his talk and hoped that someday we could work together Read More…

With the release of browsers that support HTML5 and related technologies, we will see web designers and developers build web apps that take advantage of the canvas tag to add drawing capabilities without an add-in to the browser. We wanted to build a tool that allowed you to take a drawing application you are familiar with and make it easy to export to canvas Read More…

Does your manager care about good design? Is he or she an advocate for good design? This post will help you discover how ‘design enlightened’ your boss is—and show you how to turn an unenlightened boss into a design advocate Read More…

Perusing all the design blogs I follow, I always happen upon “Fire Your Client” and “How to deal with bad clients” posts. In fact, I often enjoy reading Business Guys on Business Trips, which takes a snarky look at dealing with clients who don’t get it Read More…

At our MIX10 conference for web developers and designers, the MIX Online community team (us) was given an opportunity to display a booth in The Commons. At first, we politely declined. The Unbearable Lameness of Convention Booths There were a few reasons why I was uninspired about having a booth. I find the traditional pipe Read More…

Everybody loves good data visualization. The New York Times has been especially good at using data visualization to demonstrate the power of information visualization as a communication tool. We thought the topic was intriguing enough to create a lab about it. As you may know, we have a sister conference called MIX where we will Read More…

It’s rare to find an organization that has not had a project stall, flail, or completely fall apart. By the time you find your project in this position (and are willing to accept it), you’re typically already “in the weeds” or “bailing water out of the boat with a bucket”. I’ll admit that this has Read More…

MIX Online, our community for designers and developers who build the web, is now 1 year old. We took the cover off the new site last year on October 22nd, with a fresh (some would say "non-Microsoft") aesthetic and our first lab, Oomph. Our goal? Build a site that we would want to be a Read More…

It always starts out as a friendly conversation. Developers or designers are discussing the language or tool of the week, when someone pulls out the “real programmers/designers use x” talk. The mood shifts. What was once a friendly little chat has become a chess game of defending the position. Perspective I see this attitude a Read More…

I don’t want to go on a rant, but hey—here’s the shortlist of things that still annoy me about the Web: Filler. That white space is there for a reason. Having to click 40 times to view an entire article, just so someone can fill ad inventory. Social media insanity. No, social media does not Read More…

For the past month, we’ve been flooded with Woodstock flashbacks from 40 years ago. The peace and love movement. People who bucked conventions and did things their way. The Beatles, throwing out their suits and experimenting. Of course, we’ve taken a dramatic turn since the countercultural hippie/beatnik era. These days, we are obsessively plugged into Read More…

Why is it that when given someone else’s code or design, it is always horrible? I have noticed over the years that whenever I hear developers or designers talking about a codebase or design they inherited or reviewing that it almost inevitably leads to a proclamation of: OMG! This is the worst I have seen, Read More…

Should designers stop wasting time and budgets with wireframes and go straight to design comps? A tempest stirred on 37Signal’s blog when they posted an entry called Why we skip Photoshop. It is a good read that turns convention on its head (which those guys are prone to do) but what was interesting is all Read More…

A couple weeks ago I took a vacation that was desperately needed. It was like any vacation that I have taken before. But I did do something different this time around; I cut myself off from the grid for the most part. It was hard at first because I had just worked on a conference Read More…

It is inevitable that you will find yourself stuck in a rut. How can you go about getting yourself unstuck? Whether you are a designer, developer or manager, you find yourself doing the same things over and over again or worse, you find yourself staring at a blank screen and unable to get started. I Read More…

In a world of super-sizing and "Go Big or Go Home!’ tag-lines, it is sometimes hard to go against convention and embrace your smallness. Success appears to be made of quantity more than quality. I tend to believe that you can be successful by embracing your smallness. Smallness requires you to focus on what is Read More…

You probably noticed the site looks a little different today than the last time you visited. MIX Online has been a community site for web designers and developers who believe that the web is a great place for innovation. In the past, the site has given you a varied perspective of what is happening on Read More…